


Tear Down My Reason

by CitrusVanille



Category: McFly
Genre: Biting, M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2008-06-28
Updated: 2008-06-28
Packaged: 2018-12-02 05:16:22
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,381
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/11502531
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/CitrusVanille/pseuds/CitrusVanille
Summary: Dougie is quiet before they go on stage.





	Tear Down My Reason

Dougie is quiet before they go on stage. He gets a few odd looks, and a few sympathetic ones, and knows his strange silence is being chalked up to stage-fright. He hasn’t been so bad that he’s stayed quiet in years – these days he mostly just bangs around like a lunatic, making shit loads of noise. But he lets them think what they want. He’s been thinking a lot, himself, lately, and he’s not entirely sure what to do – not about the thinking, he can handle that, it’s _what_ he’s thinking about that’s the problem. But he knows one thing for certain: he cannot and will not speak to any of the others about this. Danny would laugh and think he was joking, Harry would likely be a little skittish, and Tom – Tom’s the reason he’s been thinking so much.

He doesn’t quite know what any of it means, or even if it means anything serious at all. He’s not sure if it’s just an obsession, or something more than that. Whatever it is, though, it’s been getting worse, and he’s more than grateful that none of the others pays enough attention to little things like where Dougie fixes his eyes at any given moment, or there could have been a number of very embarrassing moments. Still.

Dougie’s not entirely sure when it started, either. The first time he was fully aware of it was during a television spot just before the release of their last album. Danny and Tom were doing an acoustic of their newest number one single, and Dougie had been trying to distract them, with rather half-hearted help from Harry, the wuss. Tom’s eyes had crinkled up at the corners, and Dougie knew he was trying not to laugh, even though he was attempting to glare while singing. His dimple looked deep enough to lose a finger in and the tendons in his neck were standing out in that way they all never tired of taking the mickey for. And that was when Dougie knew.

He spent the next several weeks attempting to deny it, and then the weeks after that trying not to be obvious when he stared. It wouldn’t have been so bad if he’d been limited to ogling Tom’s stupid neck and his goddamned dimple. He could always pretend to be listening to what Tom was actually saying rather than just the sound of his voice if he wanted to stare at his face, for instance, but then he discovered the rear-view, as it were. Dougie had always been a bit of an arse-man, and Tom’s – well. Dougie knew it was just asking for trouble. There are only so many excuses you can use for drooling over your best mate’s arse before you start to look suspicious. And the lot of them spend so much time half-naked, or more, that Dougie has been considering taking up permanent residence in the toilet, just to avoid having to make up any more excuses for fleeing there.

But tonight. Tonight is the last night of the tour, and Dougie’s going to go absolutely ballistic if he doesn’t do something. He’s been putting it off. The logical thing, of course, would be to talk to Tom about it. Like that’s going to happen. Dougie gets worse jitters thinking about that than he ever did before going on stage or in front of the cameras. But actually _doing_ something – that he thinks he might be able to handle. He’s good at doing things if he doesn’t think about them too much in the time immediately leading up to it. So he figures going for it onstage is the best solution. He won’t be able to think about it right before he does it, because he’ll be too focused on performing. And if it backfires, and Tom flips out – as is unnervingly likely, Dougie admits to himself – he can just write it off as one of those crazy things he does in front of audiences. Besides, Danny’s been licking their faces like a dog for years, and it’s never caused any problems. Not really, anyway. And this is close enough to that, Dougie thinks if he stretches it a bit, that the excuse might just fly.

And then they’re onstage, and Dougie’s panicking just a little, but the energy and the movement and the music distract him, and he’s able to go mad just like any other show, and even forget what he’s going to do for a while. Whenever he remembers, he dreads the end of the show, and the necessity of going backstage afterwards, where there’s the potential for required explanations and complete blow ups, but he manages to keep the remembering down to a minimum.

By the time they get back on stage for the encore, Dougie is sweating more than usual, and he’s practically shaking. He tells Harry – who of course _would_ notice – that it’s adrenaline, and Harry gives him a funny look, but lets it go. And then Harry’s playing the intro for the last song, and Danny and Tom join in, and then it’s Dougie’s turn, and he starts to play, and knows as Tom starts to sing that it’s now or never.

Dougie doesn’t realize just how small the stage is until he’s right behind Tom much sooner than he’d expected. He’d thought he’d have at least a couple more seconds. But he’s here, and he’ll be damned if he’s going to chicken out after spending so long agonizing about it.

Tom knows he’s there – Dougie can hear the smile in his voice even if no one else would recognize it – but he doesn’t turn, keeps singing into his microphone for all he’s worth. Dougie can picture his face, even though he can’t see it. Eyes almost rolled back under heavy lids half closed as if in ecstasy, lips slightly quirked at the corners even as he sings, upper lip pressed against the mic, and that fucking, fucking dimple etched into his cheek like it’s been drilled just for the purpose of making Dougie’s mind go blank and his blood heat up.

Dougie moves closer, digs his chin into Tom’s shoulder for a moment, just to warn him how close he is, notices vaguely that Tom turns towards him ever so slightly, adjusting to make the angle more comfortable. Tom smells like sweat and shampoo and boy, and Dougie’s absurdly proud that his shaking fingers are still managing to form the right chords on his bass. There’s barely enough room between them for him to keep playing, and he’s half expecting Tom to pull away, put more distance between them, but he doesn’t. Instead, Tom leans back against him, and now they’re so close that even if Dougie wanted to, wussing out isn’t even an option.

He hums softly, just a low sound in his throat, nothing to do with the music, and Tom’s head starts to turn, as if he wants to meet Dougie’s eyes, see what’s going on, but knows he has to keep singing into the mic. And that’s when Dougie does it. Leans in those last few scant centimeters, and bites into Tom’s neck, teeth closing over the tendons that are standing out with the effort Tom is putting into his vocals. Tom falters for half a second, but covers well, and doesn’t jerk away, even when Dougie’s tongue darts out to trace over the skin clamped between his teeth.

Dougie can feel the vibrations of Tom’s voice and the hammer of his pulse, taste the salt of his sweat, and he sucks hard for a moment, then releases and spins away. He can feel his own heart beating a fierce tattoo in his chest, and it is not until he is safely back on his own side of the stage and the song is ending that he can bring himself to look at Tom again. When he does, Tom meets his eyes. Even across the stage, Dougie can see something that looks like understanding mixed in with the questions. And, when Tom grins at him and, in the brief moment in which Danny sings solo, mouths very clearly _About fucking time_ – Dougie’s head spins, blood hot in his veins, and he suddenly can’t wait to get offstage.

**END**


End file.
